


Achievement City

by EvenTheSparrow



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Achievement City, Fake AH Crew, GTA AU, Gen, Los Santos, Pre-Fake AH Crew, Short Chapters, Team as Family, The Founders - Freeform, The Roosters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-04-19 06:45:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14231592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvenTheSparrow/pseuds/EvenTheSparrow
Summary: In which a mismatched bunch of hooligans become a feared and revered crew in Los Santos, but more importantly a family.





	1. The Roosters

Los Santos. Achievement City. Two different names for the same tumultuous place. The playground of the FAHC.

It started off as any city does, of course, with a squeaky-clean justice system and blissful, naïve citizens. People were happy. Crime rates were low. Then it all went to hell. 

Petty crime was rampant. The government was corrupt and racist and classist and ableist, and every other horrible -ist you can think of. You could expect to be robbed just walking from your house to your garage. The police... they were scared. They had no authority, but they were supposed to _be_ the authority, and that was terrifying. In the face of such terror, even the best of them found themselves unable to avoid escalation. It was kill or be killed, and no one wants to die before their time.

It's a testament to how effed up human nature is that very few people actually wanted to leave. And those that _did_ want to leave? They couldn't. Pinned in place by oppressive legislation or lack of funds, those who craved a new life elsewhere found themselves driven to contribute to the crime rates just to stay afloat. 

It was total anarchy, driven by desperation, depravity, and a horrific, endless cycle of oppression and rebellion.

Then the Roosters showed up. 

Don't misunderstand me now, the Roosters were absolutely a gang of petty criminals. But they were like Robin Hood to the downtrodden slums of Los Santos. The elite were robbed of everything they had, then a few days later massive sums would appear in the bank accounts of non-profit organizations, wired in from offshore accounts. The Roosters became a driving force for good in Achievement City. 

Sergeant Matt Hullum, known as Sarge, was the public face of the Roosters. He was ex-military, a straightforward kind of guy. The kind who'd let you know exactly how he felt about you as he pumped you full of lead. But despite that, no one really knew anything about him. He was a crack shot, but his personality was a mystery. The seemingly open bluntness served, in actuality, to obscure what the man was truly like.

Michael Burns went by the nickname Burnie. I know it sounds too good to be true, but Burns handled the explosives and the arson. If he didn't like you, you'd never find out. You'd go out in an explosion caused by an unnoticed gas leak or wake up with your face on fire and then never wake up again.

Gustavo Sorola was the true brain of the Roosters. With a background in IT and a propensity for prevarication, he was the clear choice for negotiations and backing up monetary threats. His natural ability to misrepresent and misconstrue information lent him the title "The Cheese Master." Any who crossed him would find themselves short a few thousand dollars, and within a few minutes an organization they opposed would find themselves a few thousand dollars richer.

Ramsey was a wild card. The Roosters were always an organized bunch; they had meticulous plans and backup plans for every heist. And they always succeeded. But the greatest threat to their success was never from an outside source. No, their greatest threat was the unpredictability of their tattooed teammate, Geoff "The Lazer" Ramsey. The man had a gift for causing chaos, and was a fan of tattooing his enemies with beautiful designs made with caustic ink. 

And finally, perhaps appropriately, we come to Joel Heyman. He was a man of... dubious sanity, obsessed with gold and riches. You could always find him heading up the rear, a trail of cigar smoke emanating from the corner of his mouth. His fixation with gold and the constant trail of smoke led some to conclude (though mostly jokingly) that the man known as Caboose was secretly a dragon in disguise as a human. He never confirmed nor denied the allegations, to be fair, only laughing awkwardly when asked about it.

These were the Roosters. These were the protectors of our city. Five men, each mildly insane in his own way. But the people loved them. How could they not, when they owed everything to them? Yes, the Roosters were beloved, but they were also hunted.

And then, suddenly, they were gone. No one really knew why, but the once-famous crew just... dropped off the face of the Earth one day. Maybe they had had enough—of the lifestyle, of each other, of the risk. Or maybe they got caught, locked up. But you'd think the LSPD would brag about a victory so huge, right? Regardless of the reason, the Roosters' crow never again echoed through the streets of Los Santos.


	2. The Bear

A few months later, another crew rose to take its place. One more reckless, more vicious -- a crew whose infamy would rise far beyond that of the Roosters. And, rumor had it, it was led by none other than Ramsey.

So the Lazer was on the streets again, now calling himself the Kingpin. But what's a kingpin without his aides? What's a leader without a crew?

Jack Pattillo. Momma Bear. Her name was revered through all of Los Santos. She had been a getaway-driver-for-hire before finally realizing she was too good for it and dropping off the grid to do her own thing. This woman could drive anything -- and I do mean anything. Any vehicle she could get her hands on immediately became just another limb to control. She was a natural. She was deadly. She was... impossible to find, and even more impossible to catch.

So of course she was the one Geoff went to first.

He had been tracking her through Achievement City's underground. It wasn't always the most reliable, of course, but he had time and he had resources. And now he had a lead. 

One of his sources, an unassuming little girl with sharp hearing and sharper wit, had picked up on a word-of-mouth trail describing a redheaded woman weaving through the sky in a smoking cargobob, black choppers on her tail and screaming with delight as she went to ground. Sounded like Jack, alright. All the rumors said she wasn't ever afraid to go down with her ship. 

So Ramsey tossed the shocked little girl a wad of hundreds and set off to follow the trail.

He found the woman unconscious in a ditch.

Jack had gone down with her ship, as she always did. And as always, she survived. But this time she didn't get away unscathed. Her cargobob hit harder than it should have. She broke her leg. Her clothes were torn, her leg bloodied, her entire body battered and bruised. So Geoff wrapped her up in a blanket and carried her to an old nearby safehouse that used to belong to the Roosters.

Geoff would later find out that Pattillo came from a broken home. Not that any of the Roosters hadn't, but for some reason her story was particularly shocking for him. Her parents had divorced when she was young, and she and her mom moved to the shining new city of Los Santos. Away from her abusive father. And of course, it was wonderful at first. Those first few years in Los Santos had been the best of Jackie's life, before things started going downhill. The crime rates had increased and her mother got swept away by it, as many did. A drug dealer got her mom hooked on heroin, and any money either of them made funneled straight into that addiction. Her mother got abusive when she went through withdrawal, blaming her misery on Jack's inability to provide funds.

Jack was 29 when she left home. She joined a crew of ace pilots as an apprentice, discovered her aptitude, and never looked back. She had her new life now, and screw anyone who said her old life mattered anymore.

She found out much later, after the FAHC was formed, that her mother had died years ago of an overdose on bad heroin. She slept in Geoff's bed that night.  
Nothing romantic or sexual ever happened between Ramsey and Pattillo. Jack simply wasn't interested in a relationship, and to be honest Geoff wasn't either. But there was no denying the love the two had for each other. They were like brother and sister: they had their squabbles and their fights but in the end each would gladly die for the other. And almost _have_ died for each other, multiple times.


	3. The Vagabond

A few months after Jack was recruited, the pair bit off more than they could chew. Up to that point their heists had been small, just enough to pay the bills but not so large that they'd rock any boats. But this time they'd overestimated their abilities, or they'd underestimated the police force. They barely escaped with their lives. Jack somehow managed to fly them to a safehouse in a plane with one wing shot off, where they laid low for a few days to plan. 

They decided they needed new blood. Some muscle. Someone who could cover them with answering fire while Jack kept the getaway vehicle running and Geoff grabbed the loot. Someone without a home.

Because that's how Geoff and Jack worked. Not by conscious choice, mind you, but because that was just who they were; they took in those without a home, without a family. And who could fit that bill better than the one called the Vagabond?

The Vagabond was a criminal with no gang. An infamous lone wolf who intended to stay that way. He was brutal. A weapons-master who wore a skull mask, a leather jacket, jeans, and the blood of his enemies. He never hesitated to take the lives of those who stood in his way. He was exactly what Ramsey and Pattillo needed, and they were going to get him in their crew at all costs.  
They sent a messenger to a location the Vagabond was known to frequent. The messenger's head returned in a box with a note that read simply, "Cowards," with an address scrawled in spiky handwriting on the back.

… Memo received. The two decided they'd have to visit him themselves if they wanted him, so that's exactly what they did. The address was one in the suburbs of Los Santos. A nicer neighborhood, solidly middle-class. Shockingly humble for a man of the Vagabond's stature. When they knocked on the solid oak door, they heard a deep voice call out that he'd be right there. The two exchanged a brief confused look. They _were_ in the right place... right?

And then a man in an apron answered the door with a warm smile, and their confusion only increased. This was certainly the Vagabond, the paint (or was it tattoos?) on his face proved it. But he had no mask on, and... oh god, what was that apron? It was hideous. A bare male torso wearing a kilt? There was even a sword printed on the hip. _This_ was the famed Vagabond? This... suburban dad with horrid taste in aprons?

If he was trying to disturb them, he was succeeding. 

The Vagabond invited Jack and Geoff into his home, and the smell of cooked bacon and pancakes filled their noses. The house was tidy, well-lit, and cozy; nothing about it could possibly make one suspect that a homicidal maniac lived within. Heck, there were even crocheted coasters on the coffee table; had he made those himself?!

The two left their rendezvous with a large plate of bacon pancakes, massive confusion, a name, and a phone number. 

The man's name was Ryan Haywood. He had been one of those who first sought to leave Los Santos. What had stopped him, however, was not lack of funding or oppression from the system. No, he was privileged, and he acknowledged that. What stopped him was the need. There was massive need for change in this city, and by golly he would do something about it. It started out -- and continued to be -- as simple as taking in those who needed shelter or providing a warm meal and a listening ear to a hurting soul. But as he listened, anger stirred in his heart. Anger against the injustice of it all. Providing comfort would no longer be enough. 

He began calling himself the Vagabond in reference to all those left wandering and without a home, in reference to those he cared for. It stuck. His jobs started as simple threats, quickly escalating to _backed_ threats and promises. He forced legislators into action, made the rich donate to non-profit organizations, and generally coerced people into doing the least they could do to meet the standard of decent human beings. But as he continued, as he discovered the exhilaration of the hunt, it turned into more than just protection of his people. 

His first kill was a legislator. The man had simply refused to cooperate with any of the demands Ryan was making, and in a fit of anger he lashed out with the butt of his gun. It connected with the man's temple, sending him crumpling to the floor. Ryan had been shocked. But that was the first time. From then on he was less sparing with his bullets. 

And so when the Kingpin and the Bear came to him offering a position in a crew that would fight for the rights of the people of Achievement City, Ryan couldn't refuse. He had heard of the exploits of the Roosters. They were what inspired him to take up crime, after all. So to join a founding member in a new crew was the best opportunity the Vagabond could ask for.


	4. Mogar

If the three were honest, they got bored. Not with each other, but with the heists. They were doing good work and helping people, moving quickly past the "just paying the bills" phase and into the "providing actual solid help for people" phase and that was awesome, but the heists themselves were getting boring. 

That is, until a wild little demolitionist vaulted into their lives. 

Michael "Mogar" Jones was a firecracker. He was what Geoff had been, back in the days of the Roosters. Geoff had mellowed since then, sobering up both figuratively and literally in order to more effectively lead his crew, and he wondered after a while if maybe this unpredictable, wild-eyed man was just what the crew needed.

Of course, at first he was wondering aloud what the absolute f--- this curly-haired freak just did to his living room, as well as who would fix the giant hole in his wall. 

To Mogar, the fact that Ramsey only yelled and didn't try to shoot him said that this was where he needed to be. So eventually (after he paid for the damages) Mogar joined the crew, and none of the other crew members could honestly say they ever had a dull day after that moment.

Michael didn't tell the crew much about himself for quite some time. He was the kind of guy who wanted to live in the moment, because that was all that mattered to him. The moment. He was constantly seeking thrills, always moving on to the next thing. But maybe it said something about the strength of the crew that he never moved on from them. Sure, he'd disappear on personal missions for weeks on end, but he would always return. Always. The crew became his home. They became his foundation. And maybe that's why he finally decided to stop living in the moment for a few precious minutes and let himself relive the past.

Michael never knew his parents. They died, maybe, or perhaps they dumped him in a cardboard box on the side of the road one day. He didn't know, and he never wanted to find out. Regardless of the truth, he liked to think they were international sleeper agents who were trying to keep him safe from people who would use him to get at them. 

He grew up on the streets. Street kids had crews too, did you know that? And he was smart. A little crazy, but smart. So he made himself useful. Learned how to read and write, figured out the best places to get food, started his own crew once his leader started to feel threatened by him. And he kept learning. He never stopped observing and figuring things out. 

And then one day he discovered explosives. He soon realized that different ingredients or different conditions would change the explosion. Make it bigger, make it smaller, make it billow tons of smoke, make it entirely smokeless. He figured out all of that and more. And he realized he could use them to get stuff. So he did. 

Michael left his hometown when he was 14. He hitched a ride on a truck carrying a shipment of grapes and went wherever it took him. 

He ended up in Los Santos, where he formed a new crew. But once the crew was established, they deposed him. They thought he was too unstable to lead. If he were to be completely honest, they were right. He didn't make a good leader anymore, his ideas were better as a subordinate or a lone criminal. The thought of being under the rule of someone he had saved, however... well, that chafed. He couldn't stand it, so he just left. 

There wasn't anything wrong with being on his own. But he heard about this unnamed crew that was ruffling some feathers, and he was intrigued. So he decided to go say hello in the best way he knew how.


	5. X-Ray and Vav

Mogar became one of the crew’s best heist planners, despite his squirreliness. His heists were big, they were bold, and they worked. And one day he came up with an absolutely brilliant scheme. But it was bigger than a four-person heist. They needed backup. Luckily, Michael knew just the delinquents for the job. 

Gavin and Ray were two young members of Michael’s old crew in his hometown. The two were like brothers, inseparable. More importantly, though, Ray was an expert sniper. He’d shoot down gliders and parachutes for laughs, and liked to sit and watch planes go by through his scope. He was Puerto Rican, an immigrant who had spoken little to no English when Michael’s crew took him under their wings. His parents had crossed a rival gang, the Ñetas, in a pretty serious way and went out together, killed by one of their enforcers. Ray had been shuffled onto a boat bound for Florida by an aunt, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a small wad of cash in his pocket. He eventually made his way to Los Angeles, where he met Gavin.

Later, when Ray told the crew his story, Geoff shocked everyone with his knowledge of the Ñetas and their operations. He just shrugged, saying that the Roosters had worked with their New York chapter on occasion. The Ñetas were a lot like the Roosters, if he were to be honest, fighting against injustice and misconduct in the prison systems. He didn’t agree with all of their methods, but for the most part he approved of what they were trying to do. Even Ray, who had lost his parents to that dread gang, could find in himself a respect for the standards they were trying to enforce. 

And then there was Gavin. Vav. The Golden Boy. He had a bad habit of never holding onto money for too long. The boy had no concept of “saving money.” Ray kept him on his feet, but had to be careful to make sure Vav wouldn’t impulse-buy a Ferrari or something. Gavin was also an immigrant, technically speaking, but his family came from money. The family originated in the Italian mafia -- pretty high up, in fact. His nuclear family had lived in Britain, off of money sent monthly by mob boss Guilio -- Vav’s grandfather. From birth he had been taught that money was no object, and it really wasn’t. At least, not until Guilio was killed by a rival clan and the family lost their status in the mob. Then in ‘93 his family fled to America in the hopes of escaping their old life. 

They started out on the East coast, but moved to Los Angeles when his parents were called to consult on the OJ Simpson case in ‘94. They weren’t killed for that case, but in their search they found out something unrelated and managed to tick off the wrong people at the wrong time.

So the Golden Boy, who had always had everything he needed, was alone on the streets with nothing. 

X-Ray and Vav came from very different places. From very different lifestyles. Despite that, their stories aligned in ways very few did. Both immigrants, orphaned at a young age by parents who crossed the wrong people, both left on the streets to die by an unfair system, both totally shafted by life. Both coming to find acceptance in a crew run by an angry little pyromaniac. 

So when the man to whom they owed their lives called them up to participate in a heist in Los Santos, the pair packed up and left within the hour.   
The heist went off remarkably well. X-Ray and Vav fit in perfectly with the rest of the team, even if everyone thought Gavin was a mingey little prick. They did three more heists with the crew before Geoff thought to formally invite them in. 

They moved to Achievement City. Ray moved into one of Ryan's spare bedrooms, always intending to find his own place but never getting around to it. Ryan didn't mind; Ray was a good housemate who understood that not all dead air needed to be filled with noise. Gavin moved into Geoff's massive downtown apartment, where his ridiculous antics helped Geoff find joy and laughter in the small moments again.


	6. Tragedy

The crew felt complete.

The six of them were a family. Over the months and years they worked together they had pulled off more heists than they could count, and had changed even more lives with the loot from those heists. That the bonds between them were capable of being severed was unthinkable. 

Unfortunately, life loves to throw the unthinkable at us.

It wasn't even a big heist. All they were supposed to do was hit an armored truck and split with the cash. But somehow the cops were a step ahead. 

Ray went down in a firefight between the crew and the cops. Ryan was cornered, cops on every side, he was hurt. And Ray... he was a sniper who couldn't find a vantage point, but his friend was in danger so instead he leaped into the fray, dual-wielding Micro SMGs. He leaped into the path of an enemy sniper.

He was gone in an instant, gone in the slipstream of a long-range sniper round.

They found out later that a new bookie had turned on them and tipped off the police. That man's family received his head that evening in a cardboard box soggy with blood, special delivery courtesy of the Vagabond.

When Ray died, Gavin didn't know where to turn. X-Ray had always been there for him, a steadying presence in the Golden Boy's unstable life. But now his brother-in-arms was gone, buried six feet under wearing his beloved purple hoodie and a worn-out knitted beanie over white bandages, and it felt like Gavin's heart had been ripped to shreds and smashed with a meat tenderizer. 

Of course, the other members of the FAHC were affected too, but none so much as Vav. Michael went uncharacteristically quiet, Geoff started drinking again, Jack helped Ryan take to the skies and silently hunt down every one of the bastards who had taken their friend. 

But Gavin, who had known X-Ray since childhood, who was always slightly too given to excess, slipped into addiction. I suppose Geoff did too, to an extent, though his never fell back into full-blown alcoholism. He was too careful for that. He knew what it was like. And so he noticed when Gavin went off the deep end. He noticed the unusually high bills piling in, from car dealerships, from haberdasheries, from known front companies, and most often of all from places or people whose names wouldn't even show up on the records. Vav couldn't even be reached throughout the day, and most nights would show up at home completely euphoric. Geoff noticed that, but he also noticed the soft sobs that would come from Gavin's room early in the morning after the drugs had worn off and reality set back in. 

They had an intervention. Geoff stopped drinking again, if only to provide Gavin with proof that it could be done. 

Gavin recovered, eventually. He came to terms with the fact that his best friend had died, which is something no one should ever have to do.


	7. Rimmy Tim

Eventually the crew healed. There was scarring and a deep emptiness where Ray used to be, but they grew closer as a family and more careful as a crew. Gavin or Jack took over the sniping when it was necessary, but they still felt unbalanced. They needed someone unaffected by their personal tragedy who could bring the life back to the crew.

One of their behind-the-scenes tech guys, a shaggy-haired dude named Matt, brought up one day that an old friend of his was looking for something more permanent. As many of the crew had, this friend was getting tired of working on his own. He was a good shot, had just the right amount of crazy, and had experience with stealth missions that only two of the current crew possessed.

So when a short man dressed in a gaudy purple suit coat, orange undershirt, yellow corduroy pants, and a cowboy hat showed up at Geoff's apartment one day, Geoff was speechless. The man had introduced himself as Rimmy Tim, and bounded into the room with an excited "Hap-HAP!" 

Ryan headed up organization for their next mission, a stealth capture of a high-ranking official who stood against reform of the prison system. At first he was distrusting of the loud, small man who sought to join their crew, but he did his best to stay fair in the planning and give him a chance to show his skills and prove himself.

That's exactly what Rimmy did. 

Ryan had asked Rimmy to take point with him; he wanted to be able to keep an eye on him if nothing else. It turned out that as loud and obnoxious as Rimmy was in everyday life, he had remarkable insight when it came to stealth. He seemed to know exactly when to move, when to strike, when to shoot. It was elegant, graceful... almost beautiful.

That mission was their most successful since Ray's death. 

So Rimmy moved into Ray's old room. Ryan resented it at first, resented the replacement of his soft-spoken friend with this loud, strangely dressed man, but came to appreciate Rimmy's enthusiasm and even his odd “Hap” noises. Although, to be fair, Ryan had gotten used to Gavin's bird noises pretty fast, so there was no real reason for him to not get used to these.

The new housemates (who in many ways couldn't be more different but were so, so similar in others) came to be informally referred to as the Battle Buddies. They were the ones sent on stealth missions, occasionally with Jack standing by as their escape plan. More importantly, however, they came to trust each other. 

It was in one of their rare quiet moments that Ryan finally asked Rimmy how he got to where he was. 

Rimmy Tim was born Jeremy Dooley. He was a kid with a knack for causing chaos and frustrating the absolute heck out of teachers. He also couldn't remember a time when his parents weren't fighting about something or other. He couldn't stand the quiet between the outbursts. Quiet meant Jeremy's mom would come home drunk at 3 in the morning. Quiet meant his dad would cry himself to sleep.

So he filled the silence. If it wasn't with rap music blaring in his ears, it was with odd noises and wild movement. Any silent moment had to be filled with something. Quiet meant bad things. 

Ryan had wondered aloud how Rimmy could handle the silence of stealth missions. Music was his answer. He constantly played music through wireless earbuds. It lent him its rhythm and its comforting sound. Rimmy knew it also meant he had a tendency to speak louder than he realized, so he always made a point to not say a word during stealth missions, instead favoring sharp gestures and mouthed words.

It had been a long while before he finally left home, despite the constant bickering and all the times the aggression of his parents had been taken out on him. Because after it was all said and done they were still his parents. It was still home and he was loathe to leave what he knew.

When he did leave, however, it was a surprisingly quiet exit. After 20 years he had finally realized his situation wasn't healthy, and without warning he booked a plane to California. He wasn’t quite sure why he picked California, if he were to be honest, only that he felt some spark, some pull, enticing him there. So Jeremy, now calling himself Rimmy after a nickname he had picked up in high school, found himself in Los Santos at the height of its criminal days. And being a recently displaced young man with a predisposition to chaos, he took to it like Sharpie to cloth.

Rimmy Tim made a name for himself in Los Santos. But more importantly than that, he found a home in the crew.


	8. Treyco

Eventually Geoff found himself longing for simpler days, days when he didn’t have a crew to run. He found himself tired of the responsibilities that came with leadership. A promising young man named Trevor had been working for the crew as a bookie for some time now, and Geoff decided to relinquish ownership to him. Geoff would still work in a position of leadership, but without the stress and decision-making that came with it. 

Trevor was a man who came from money. It was his family, actually, who first chose to fund the Los Santos Experiment. He grew up instilled with a strong business sense and a stronger sense of style. When Los Santos was built, then, he was built with it. The city opened to residents the same year as his birth — same month, even — and in an odd notion carried over from childhood he always considered the city his sibling. As Los Santos grew, so did Trevor. So also did his inner darkness grow with the city’s. The unfinished city became a haven for crime, and the unfinished businessman eventually became its figurehead. Skimming funds from his family’s accounts, he took to the underground. Not physically, of course; one must always maintain appearances, but through proxies and middlemen. Trevor fed the underground that had taken up residence in the city’s unfinished bones, stoking its fire, for no reason other than rebellion against his parents and the ethics they had instilled in him from birth. For he had long felt that he was merely another experiment to them. Always second to the greater experiment of Los Santos. 

The moment he felt he was old enough to hold his own, Trevor officially left home to roam the streets of the city he couldn’t help but love. When he left, it was a final blow to the scientific integrity of the experiment that was Trevor Lestecher. 

Perhaps they found it interesting. Perhaps they thought they’d observe his machinations as a furthering of the social experiment, then shut it down when they felt it had gone too far. Whatever their intent, it failed. Trevor went dark, totally off the grid. They lost track of him, he lost track of them. He loved it. Finally, he was free from the pressures of high society, free to be something simultaneously less and more. Sure, he was giving up the easy money and the luxurious comfort, but he was also giving up the trappings. To Trevor, leaving meant escaping that noose of unearned wealth that had bound him his entire life. He was free, and that in itself was worth more than all the gold in the world.

Trevor had influence in Los Santos's underground from the day he started funding it. He had convinced the heads of the major crime rings that it would be better to stay underground, to wait until the cops got complacent to strike. And he was right. He always intended to delay that day, to keep everything cloaked in shadow and secrecy. He knew what such corruption could do to a place, and he wanted to keep his sibling safe. But there came a day when his influence grew weak. He became unable to provide funds, and without money there is no power. The corruption that he had been holding back, that had been straining its bonds for years, burst free in a sudden wave of crime and desperation. 

Trevor had nothing. He was a man lost in a labyrinth of his own design. His city — his shining, beautiful Los Santos — had fallen to corruption.

For months he wandered, hopeless, homeless, sinking himself into countless pits of vice. Until, that is, a suburban dad with horrid taste in aprons found him and took him in. Not yet calling himself the Vagabond, Ryan gave a lost young man a home. 

Life in Los Santos was improving. The Roosters had come into prominence and though crime rates remained high, the atmosphere was slowly becoming one of hope again. The despair that had shrouded Achievement City was lifting, and people felt that there was something they could do. 

The despair that had shrouded Trevor was beginning to lift, too. Thanks to the comfort and stability that Ryan had offered him, Trevor was able to get back on his feet and get back out on his own. His first job was as a bookie for a small gang of thieves, but his reputation as an effective businessman quickly grew and he found himself keeping records for more and more crews as time went on. 

Then one of his employers accused Trevor of cheating him out of hard-earned money. It was a lie, the discrepancy was the employer’s own fault, but he needed a scapegoat. Just about any other mob boss needing someone to throw blame on would have merely fired the poor sap, but no, this one happened to hate Trevor’s guts with a burning passion. So he tried, multiple times, to have Trevor killed. Finally Trevor decided it was time to fake his own death, because why do anything halfway?

Trevor went to Ryan and asked if he knew how to fake a death. Ryan laughed, because of course he knew how. Even better, however, was that he had just ended a call with Trevor’s old employer, asking if the Vagabond would take out one of his old employees who had swindled him. Ryan had said no, he didn’t take contracts, but he decided to call the man back and tell him that he’d changed his mind.

Ryan absolutely _destroyed_ Trevor’s apartment. Blood on the floor and walls (taken, of course, from Trevor’s own body; the police would be able to tell if it had been anyone else’s), shattered vases and picture frames, overturned furniture, bullet holes in walls — the Vagabond had killed enough by this point that he knew how to make a faked death look real. Meanwhile Trevor, huddled over a computer in Ryan’s basement, was forging for himself a new identity. He felt attached to the name Trevor so he supposed he’d keep it, but “Lestecher?” Way too pretentious, and way too conspicuous. After some thought and searching he came upon the name “Collins,” which (appropriately, he felt) meant “victory of the people.”

Thus Trevor Lestecher died and in his place was born Trevor Collins, who promptly joined an unnamed crew disrupting the hostile chaos of his city with a new type of chaos, one that expressed a certain childlike wonder in the way it operated.


	9. The Sauce

It was somewhat surprising, perhaps, the sheer number of cops that didn’t turn to crime. Alfredo Diaz was one of the few who did. In his fourth year on the force, he found himself admiring more and more the daring and bravery of those who defied the law to make the lives of Los Santos’ residents safer and more free. The face of those brave souls, of course, was the Fakes. Now, they weren’t called that at the time, they were only known as “the crew led by the Kingpin” or “that one crew that likes to dress up in weird costumes,” but my point remains. The Fakes were the face of hope, and Trevor had become the face of the Fakes. 

Which was ironic, because Alfredo had the same face.

The two looked like they could be twins, aside from their eyes and the color of their skin. Trevor was about as white as it got, and Alfredo was darker, of mixed ancestry. But when they finally came face to face in a shootout between the crew and the police, when they finally locked eyes, both froze in shock. Their instincts came flooding back after a split second and they resumed the firefight, but that one strange moment changed Alfredo’s life forever.

He arranged a covert meeting with the young leader of the Fakes, and Trevor eagerly accepted. A few nights later, in a dark alley under cover of darkness, Alfredo found himself staring down the end of a semi-automatic rifle into the masked eyes of the Vagabond. It took a while for Alfredo to assure him that no, this wasn’t a trick, he wanted to help the crew, but the gun finally lowered and Trevor stepped into a dim beam of light shining in from the street. 

From that moment on, Alfredo was the crew’s secret weapon. He was their police informant, and as a trusted and respected member of the force he had access to all the information the crew could want. Their heists grew in number and in scale with the Sauce on their side, sitting in his car, feet propped up, listening to encrypted radio transmissions and passing information to the support crew, who in turn passed it to the ears of the Fakes. 

It was a good life, albeit one filled with stress and subterfuge. 

He eventually got found out. His partner on the force, a good man who had done some pretty bad things in the name of the law, put two and two together. When confronted, Alfredo conceded that yes, he had been passing along information. He pled his case with his partner, explaining the good that the crew had done and would continue to do, with or without ‘Fredo. His partner merely shook his head and walked away. Alfredo never saw him alive again. He was lost in a firefight with Fakehaus a few days later, and that’s when Alfredo left the force. 

It meant, of course, that he didn’t have his connections anymore, but Geoff, Trevor, and the rest of the crew supported his decision. ‘Fredo was still well-trained, his experience with the police assured that. He had held his own against the Fakes, and that made him worth keeping.


	10. The Fakes

Trevor was the one who named the crew, in the end. It took awhile, and each little piece of it came at different times, but eventually it all fell together like a strange puzzle. Fitting, I suppose, given that that’s exactly what the members of the crew were. Mismatched puzzle pieces that came together to create something new, something beautiful. Something whole.

“Fake” was a street name that had come from the disguises the crew wore with every heist. Every time it was different, every time the outfits grew more and more outlandish. They would always insist it was so no one would recognize them, but let’s face it — what other crew would rob a bank dressed in tuxedos and eagle masks? It also, in an odd turn, became somewhat of an umbrella term for those crews adopted by the FAHC. Fakechop, Fakehaus, Fake Pine 7; when the FAHC adopted a crew they became part of the family of Fakes. 

“Achievement,” of course, stemmed from the street name of the city. Officially it was called Los Santos, but over the years its residents began to feel a certain distaste for what had become one of the largest misnomers in U.S. history. “The Saints,” indeed. It wasn’t so much the name itself that rankled them, but rather that the name had been bestowed in earnest and now served as a reminder that reality had fallen so, so short of expectation. So it was from tongues laden with sarcasm that a new name spread through the streets of Los Santos. Achievement City. It was, after all, a city where dreams came true and goals were realized — so long as your goals and dreams were to be involved in crime. 

“Hunter” was, if they were to be honest, a bit of a joke. Hunting cops, hunting too-big-for-their-britches overachieving politicians, hunting thrills. They hunt things. Ha. It was a joke, however, that also happened to honor a certain dead crew member. 

Ray didn’t have a middle name; it was something they had joked about all the time, back before the incident. They’d come up with options, mostly joking, for him to pick from, and he always laughed them off. There was only ever one he didn’t just shrug off with a chuckle. Not to say that he accepted it as his middle name, but he admitted once to Gavin in a weed-induced high that if he had to pick, he’d choose Hunter. It felt right. The feelings it evoked of a predator lying in wait captured perfectly the adrenaline rush he got from picking off faraway targets. 

“Hunter,” because they would never — could never — forget their dead friend. 

So the unnamed crew taking Achievement City by storm became The Fake Achievement Hunter Crew. Gavin thought it seemed a bit wordy, and took it upon himself to shorten it to “The Fake AH Crew,” “The Fakes,” or even merely “The FAHC.” They went by many names, but every one of those names always managed to strike fear into the hearts of the strong and bolster the courage of the weak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends the story of how the Fakes came to be. There's much more to this story, many more avenues to explore, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to writing it. But this stands on its own pretty well, I think. A solid origin story for an iconic group of weirdos. Here's to many more.


End file.
